Recent content by Alphastream

I wonder about this. I'm not sure. It could be. I think at various points in RPG history it felt like there were big communities of players for various games (Vampire being a clear one), but the reality was always that D&D was unfathomably big. The difference is probably even greater now. Even...

It seems like a very good start is, just, you know, make $2M on your 5E-compatible Kickstarter! I do worry that the DDB interface is already straining with the current number of 3rd party providers, and at some point the amount of 3rd party options will drive sales down, but I sure would like...

Heh. Yeah, what Kelsey mentioned at GaryCon is really off the charts for any indie RPG. The idea that you sell through your already huge Kickstarter and then order even more books? And have to order more again? That's just not something RPG history has shown to us. We need to keep Shadowdark's...

I want to correct this statement. The revenue for Monopoly Go is ludicrously large. But the revenue that Hasbro gets from that license is a fraction of the billions. When you take licensed revenue portions from BG3 + Monopoly Go, D&D (paper and digital) are about twice that total. I would argue...

Thanks! I haven't looked at this Q1 yet (but will this weekend, in time for our Mastering Dungeons recording next week). The quick look I had says that this is indeed a great quarter for both Magic and D&D. It's also the first time in a few quarters that D&D has been mentioned during the main...

I assume this is D&D Beyond? (And perhaps other partners, but the OGL changed that plan.)

It is a bit hard to say, "the 2025 Monster Manual for the 2024 revision of D&D," as I did in today's video. Whew. I had to actually refilm it because I said it wrong and didn't notice.

This is the biggest impediment all other RPGs must contend with. It weakens every other RPG out there, and I admire the courage of those companies to live in a flumph-less world. I'm running a Deadlands campaign, and look, not a moment doesn't go by when I think, "that tumbleweed could have been...

Ray, as the architect of the 2024 edition, can you speak to what the impetus was for launching the new edition in 2020? Were sales starting to lessen that early in, or was something else the driver? (To be clear, nothing historically wrong with sales flattening... it's amazingly positive...

I organize D&D at two large Seattle conventions, PAX and ECCC. As I've shared on my blog, the number of people interested in D&D is enormous. And a lot of them this past August had heard of '24 and were super excited about it. We had a pre-release copy of the PH and people were texting their...

This is a good question, but hard to answer. Perhaps the most true answer is that just about no one is making money of consequence. And just about no one can, through any model, cover the costs of a mortgage, kids going to college, retirement, and health care later in life. This is an industry...

Following Greg Tito's public comments, it seemed that management pulled funding from them, as he expressed disappointment that the events couldn't be held in the way they had before (once the pandemic had lessened, and not for pandemic reasons but rather management ones).

When Ray mentioned this, it was a example, not the sole reason for growth. It is also about younger players. More than half of 5E's players started with 5E and more than half are in their 20s or younger. Gender is just super easy to look at as something that you can double, and was clearly...

I'm just reading through this thread. This is a great question. I don't think we know because there are so many factors. The plethora of products in 2E is likely tied to two key factors: that even middle TSR management didn't know when a line such as Planescape was losing money or a specific...

I'm thankful to Glicker for his 2022 BookScan video, from which I worked up my own Excel figures and put together the blog series that has been mentioned here a few times (thanks, folks!). I am very much a nerd that enjoys trying to understand our industry. I think there are a few kinds of...